


A Bitter, Floral Aftertaste

by CatKing_Catkin



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Caleb Widogast Needs a Hug, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: c02e016 A Favor in Kind, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hallucinations, Hopeful Ending, Hurt Mollymauk Tealeaf, Hurt/Comfort, Mollymauk Tealeaf & Yasha Friendship, Mollymauk Tealeaf Has Feelings, POV Caleb Widogast, Past Rape/Non-con, Poisoning, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rescue, Self-Loathing Caleb Widogast, Sickfic, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Team Feels, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 05:36:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20237617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatKing_Catkin/pseuds/CatKing_Catkin
Summary: Caleb and Mollymauk are the only ones of the Mighty Nein at the Leaky Tap one night, when Caleb notices that a stranger seems to have designs on sleeping with Molly whether Molly wants it or not. Caleb must swallow down his fears of drawing attention in order to save his teammate from harm, but that still leaves as him the only one available to look after Molly as he sweats and suffers through the poison that was put in his drink for the sake of making him an easier target.In the depths of his fevered delirium, Molly admits some things - about his life, about his past - that Caleb knows he would never truly want to say or want anyone else to hear. But all Caleb can do is listen, try to ease the sickness, and reflect on what a burden understanding can sometimes be.





	A Bitter, Floral Aftertaste

There was something wrong with Molly.

Caleb was trying to ignore as much, but the reality was increasingly evident, and he was uncomfortably aware that the point was fast approaching where he’d be unable to do anything to help.

Molly liked people, liked being around them and listening to them, far more than most of the rest of the group did. Molly liked to flirt, and sometimes – less often than some people might assume to look at him – this led to him spending the night with others besides the Mighty Nein. That was fine. That was normal, for the tiefling. This group was still a new and fragile thing, but Caleb had still known him long enough to be reasonably certain of that much.

And, at a glance, the scene before him now seemed to be more of that normalcy. The human who had taken the bar stool next to Molly seemed ordinary enough, even plain in appearance if not in dress, but he’d caught Molly’s eye all the same. They were smiling at one another, Caleb could hear them laughing, and it seemed only a matter of time until they stumbled upstairs together and that would be the last any of them would see of Molly for the night.

Except something was wrong – subtly wrong, but somehow even worse for it. The way Molly was sitting was wrong, the sound of his laughter was wrong. His body language wasn’t right – too devoted, too attentive, verging on _submissive_. Molly had a way of making people feel like they were important, that they were the sole occupant of his attentions and that everything they had to say was fascinating beyond measure. Caleb knew that much well enough. But he also knew, one con man to another, that part of the charm lay in making whoever he was talking to feel like they’d _earned_ his attention, rather than being given it so easily.

No, Mollymauk Tealeaf was not one to grovel or pine or pant after someone who’d caught his eye. Caleb didn’t delude himself into thinking he was good at understanding people, but the tiefling was an open enough book in the ways that mattered, especially after some of the close calls they’d had together.

So none of this was right, and Caleb could think of a few different possible causes for it. Most of them were magic, and that thought made a cold shiver race down his spine. Because if magic was involved, that meant that the plain looking man who had stolen Molly’s attentions was probably a wizard of some description. If he wasn’t, then he was still wealthy enough to commission the work of one. Either way, that would mean he was _connected_, and especially here in Zadash that might mean he was connected to people whose notice Caleb was truly desperate to avoid.

He knew he should do _something_, knew he was watching Molly being caught in a web and drawn into a situation where he would get _badly_ hurt in a way that might not leave marks but would leave scars all the same. And yet, fear kept his feet rooted to the floor for a crucial few moments. Fear kept trying to drown out the reality of the situation. _Maybe I am mistaken. Maybe I am jumping to conclusions. Maybe it would be better to wait for one of the others to return. _Perhaps he was simply being presumptuous in assuming he knew Molly well enough to be worried. He might be about to intrude on a situation the tiefling wouldn’t thank him for intruding on, and might give his teammate entirely the wrong idea.

Maybe everything was actually fine, and he wouldn’t have to put himself in danger at all.

Caleb might have sat there and kept lying to himself until much too late if not for Frumpkin. He was drawn out of his panicked spiral by the feeling of the cat kneading at his trouser leg. Caleb startled, muffling a yelp, before hastily pushing his chair back to stare down at his familiar – he’d almost forgotten he’d left him to wander the common room.

Frumpkin, meanwhile, stared up at him with bright amber eyes. Apparently satisfied that he had Caleb’s full attentions, he leapt up into Caleb’s lap instead, but rather than curling up he sat back on his hind legs and braced his front paws on Caleb’s chest, purring up a storm and refusing to break their locked gazes.

Almost on instinct, Caleb moved to pet his cat, scratching Frumpkin’s ears and then trailing his fingertips down the furry spine, feeling the vibrations rumbling gently up his arm and letting them slowly calm him. He reached out with his mind to touch Frumpkin’s lightly. Frumpkin reached back with thoughts of reassurance. His familiar was here and striving to remind him that he was not weak, that he was not powerless, that he was not without options.

Avoiding a dangerous situation was not the only way to be smart about it. He’d had plenty of chances to learn that on his journey so far. It wasn’t ideal but, then again, so few things were.

“I know,” he whispered, leaning down to nudge his head against Frumpkin’s. “I know. Thank you.”

Then he dug his fingers into Frumpkin’s fur to keep himself steady, and – with a supreme effort of will – managed to drag his attention back to Molly. His cat, meanwhile, simply took his accustomed spot curled up in Caleb’s lap, purring to provide more reassurance.

The first thing Caleb did was murmur the incantation for detecting magic, tucking his hands under the table to paint the requisite arcane gestures through the air unseen. There was absolutely a time crunch here and, if he truly was facing another wizard, then Molly’s _captor_ would probably notice Caleb setting up to cast the ritual. He could burn the magic immediately, just this once.

Caleb blinked and, when he opened his eyes again, the air around him was painted in swirls of color. He saw the expected auras around himself – blue for the amulet, red for the glove, green around his cat. He saw a few scattered colors limning some of the other patrons in the common room, marking them as other mercenaries or adventurers passing through.

The man sitting beside Molly was lit with another blue haze, and – with his awareness already heightened by the spell – Caleb’s gaze snapped to the strip of leather tied around his wrist. _Right_. That answered that much, at least.

Molly, meanwhile, was almost subsumed by a shimmering gold aura that Caleb immediately recognized as enchantment magic. It veiled his eyes and ears, and a chain of that same golden energy extended from one of his wrists to the other wizard’s fingertips. He was so caught up in whatever magic had been laid on him that it nearly drowned out the gentle blue pulse at his chest where Caleb knew the periapt hung. 

Something about that – about the sight of this man imposing his magic and his will over Molly so forcibly as to nearly drown out something which had brought Molly so much happiness – steadied Caleb’s heart and straightened his spine. It drowned out the cold chill of fear with a hot pulse of _anger_.

And, before he knew it, he was up and walking towards the bar. He paused just long enough to let Wessek bustle past him with a tray – the dragonborn’s bulk gave him enough cover and enough time to hastily cast a disguise spell. He adopted the dark-haired, dark-clothed form he had first tried to use to sneak into the Trispires, and covered the rest of the distance with his head held a little higher.

“Excuse me,” he said, his tone commanding, his voice clipped and cold. It was a way of speaking that would never truly leave him, and it did the job of getting both figures to look up at him in surprise. He moved to stand beside Molly, rested one hand on the tiefling’s shoulder and let the other drift towards his component pouch. All the while he stared at the other wizard as if he were scum beneath Caleb’s shoe. “Am I interrupting something?”

Molly’s brow furrowed, and this close it was easy to see how clouded his eyes were. “What are you—” he began, his voice slurred. He closed his mouth, tried again. “_Who_ are you—”

Caleb forced himself to lay a heavy, possessive hand on Molly’s shoulder, squeezing once. “Hush, now.” He hated that it worked, hated that Molly closed his mouth and simply continued to stare at Caleb with empty, uncomprehending eyes. “I will handle this.”

The other wizard’s eyes narrowed. “And what is it that you’ll be handling, mm?” he asked, in a bored voice that carried the promise of a threat beneath. His body language didn’t visibly change – he kept his languid posture, resting his chin in one hand, the fingers of the other tracing idle patterns along the top of the bar. But Caleb could see the tension in his shoulders and the tightness in his jaws. People were so difficult in so many ways, so inexplicable and so hard to read, but the tells of a predator on the hunt would never not be obvious to him.

And indeed, the smile the other human painted onto his face had far too many teeth and absolutely no warmth. “We were only talking. Having some fun.” He reached over to squeeze Molly’s knee, then actually reached out to trace a lazy, possessive pattern down along the peacock feather on Molly’s cheek. Caleb tasted bile in the back of his throat as he saw Molly lean into the touch, smiling with the air of one concussed. “I’m sorry if you feel like you missed your chance at this one, but if you’ll excuse us—”

Arrogant bastard. Had he even considered that he might be dealing with another wizard? He clearly hadn’t, because otherwise, he would have noticed Caleb’s hand withdraw quick as a cat’s paw from his component pouch before it was too late.

The phosphorescent moss smeared across his palm as he clenched his fist, then uncurled it to reveal a glowing orb of light. The bright light it shed in a ten foot radiance around them, combined with the sudden nature of its appearance, was enough to get a few eyes turned curiously towards them. Normally the very idea made Caleb break out in a cold sweat, but he wasn’t the one wearing his real face in this moment and he knew that the other wizard absolutely was.

Sure enough, he saw the man’s eyes dart about, brief but nervous. Caleb pressed the momentary weakness mercilessly. “I know what you’re about. I know the game you’re playing. It’s one so many of us play, mm? Especially fresh out of the academy.” The man’s robes were too bright for him to still be a student and too new for him to have been graduated long. “You go to the parts of town where you won’t be recognized by the people who matter. You go to the places full of crowds of noisy people, people who aren’t as smart as you, people who are only passing through and so the Crownsguard will not care about them. And then you have your fun with them. Because you’re strong, and they aren’t, and if they fall for your tricks then that proves it to you and then that means they deserve it, doesn’t it? That’s what they teach you. I know. I remember.”

Damn it all. He’d meant to stay calm and cold, he’d meant to approach this bastard on his own level. But Caleb’s eyes were starting to sting – not enough to be visible past the disguise, but it was a warning sign to him all the same. His voice had risen enough for them to be overheard, bolstered by too many bad memories and too much godsdamned _emotion_.

Then again, maybe _that_ much hadn’t been a bad thing. He could just barely see Wessek out of the corner of his eye, back behind the bar watching them both intently and close enough that he must have heard _some_ of that. Wessek had seemed a decent enough man from their limited interactions so far. So Caleb felt he could at least hope that Wessek was a decent enough man to not willfully let a predator keep patronizing his and Claudia’s establishment.

Almost as if in answer to that desperate prayer, he saw Wessek slowly reach down behind the bar and come up holding a club with some nails hammered into it. He stood behind the other wizard, unnoticed by him in that moment, but clearly ready to intervene.

Knowing that this encounter was about to end one way or another gave Caleb enough steel in his spine to carry on the façade a moment longer. Squeezing Molly’s shoulder in a deliberately possessive fashion, he leaned in close until he was practically nose-to-nose with the plain man. He forced his voice steady, forced his voice low, and didn’t have to force the growl into it at all. “So I say this, one academy graduate to another. Leave this place and let me continue to have _my_ fun without having to worry about you getting underfoot. Find your own hunting grounds, _arschloch_.”

He hadn’t meant that last to slip out. Fighting to keep his accent from getting too obvious had been enough of an effort during this encounter so far, because an obvious Zemnian accent _would_ be a potential giveaway if this man wanted to retaliate against him or cause difficulty for him later. But it was done, and even seemed to have done the job of punctuating his point. What mattered most was that he seemed to have put enough real _power_ into his voice, soft as it was now, to leave the other man convinced that he was dealing with an equal or perhaps even a superior in power.

And he hadn’t come here for that. Caleb knew he hadn’t come here for that. The point wasn’t to cause a fuss or draw attention. The point was to pick his target, have his fun with them, and leave.

And there were still plenty of places he could do that, here in this part of Zadash. Fighting over one tiefling, even one as striking as Molly, wouldn’t be worth that to this man, not when he didn’t see Molly as a person anyway. Even if he’d thought he could take Caleb – and Caleb saw in his eyes that he wasn’t at all sure – the effort wasn’t the point.

So he wasn’t at all surprised when the other wizard broke their intently locked gazes first, even if he was absolutely, indescribably relieved in the same breath. “Keep him, then,” the other human muttered bitterly, getting up from his seat and making a play of dusting himself off, adjusting his robes. “I can do better than your used-up rubbish.”

He spat at both their feet, then turned and left with his head held high, and Caleb was entirely unable to tear his gaze from the man’s retreating back until he’d walked out the door and turned the corner. In the instant before he looked away, he registered that a couple of other dragonborn following close behind. 

Then he let out a long, shuddering sigh, and finally let his knees start shaking. “Oh,” he whispered. “Okay. Oh, dear. That was…that was a lot.”

“Caleb?” Molly was staring at him now, or trying to. His eyes were still desperately unfocused and he was still swaying but this time recognition warred with the confusion on his face. Caleb’s heart lurched, wondering wildly if he’d somehow let the disguise spell drop at some point during that confrontation, but after staring hastily down at himself and checking his appearance through Frumpkin’s eyes, he saw that he still appeared as he’d intended to. Molly must have finally been able to latch on to the sound of Caleb’s voice now that he was no longer fighting to mask his accent.

“It’s all right, Molly,” he said. Relief bubbled a little higher in his chest as he started trying to help Molly up from his seat. It was more of an effort than it should have been, with Caleb trembling from the aftershocks of adrenaline and Molly desperately weak and uncoordinated from whatever enchantment had been laid on him. Caleb cursed himself for his weakness in physical strength and magic power. Dispelling magic was still beyond him. The best he could do would be to get Molly somewhere safe and stay with him until the enchantment ran its course. “Let’s go, let’s just, um, let’s just get you upstairs.”

Eventually, he got Molly upright and reasonably stable, with an arm around Caleb’s shoulder so that they could lean against each other. The stairs would be tricky, but if that was the worst obstacle they faced for the remainder of the night, Caleb would count it a blessing.

“Mm, upstairs,” Molly murmured, still wearing the sort of glassy smile that made Caleb feel faintly nauseous. “Sounds good.”

He walked where Caleb led him, and Caleb simply focused on putting one foot in front of the other and trying not to let himself shake apart.

His efforts were suddenly in vain when a heavy hand closed around his shoulder and yanked him forcibly down the step and away from the stairwell. Molly only just managed to recover and brace himself against a wall. Caleb entirely failed to muffle a startled yelp and knew he would have collapsed entirely from fright if not for the hand’s ironclad grip. He was suddenly, forcibly spun round to face his new assailant.

“And just where do you think you’re going with that tiefling?” Wessek growled in his face. His free hand still held the bat with nails in its, resting with casual promise over one shoulder.

For a long, bad moment, Caleb’s brain entirely shut down from too much stress piling on at once, leaving his tongue to stammer and stumble apparently of its own desperate accord. “I, I-I don’t, I mean, what are—”

At what he would recognize later to have been the last possible second, his wits caught up with him enough to let him hold up a hand and stammer “W-Wait.” Then he hastily dropped the illusion so that the image of the severe, dark-haired man faded and he was left standing before the dragonborn as himself, filthy and shabby but _recognizably _one of Molly’s own companions.

He turned out to have guessed right. All at once, the hostile energy vibrating through Wessek dissipated. He simply blinked at Caleb in surprise for a moment before uttering a soft, understanding: “…ah.”

“I’m not going to hurt him,” Caleb whispered desperately, almost pleading and hating himself for it. “I’m sorry for the commotion I caused. I just, please, I only want to get him out of sight until this passes. _Please_.” He fumbled in his pocket but only came up with a handful of coppers. He pressed them into Wessek’s hand anyway. “Don’t let anyone follow us or, or ask after us. If that isn’t enough, my friend will pay you more when she returns, I swear it. _Please_.”

Wessek stared from the coins to Caleb. Then he sighed, passed the coins back to Caleb, and stepped back. “I’ll bring up some water in a while,” he said, jerking his chin towards the stairs. “Go.”

Nodding gratefully, Caleb went to Molly and together they did just that.

It seemed to take a minor, hellish eternity to coordinate getting both of them up the stairs and into Caleb and Nott’s room. Caleb took two steps into the room, got Molly leaned against a wall, and then he closed the door forcibly behind them. With his fingers shaking as badly as they were, it took him three attempts to properly latch it closed but once he did, it felt like he could finally, properly breathe again, it felt like his heart might regain its normal rhythm at last.

He rested his hands against the solid, reassuring roughness of the door, rested his forehead against it, and tried to breathe. In a minute, he’d take out his silver thread and ward the room, but that could be in a minute.

It was a horrible feeling to fully appreciate in the hardwon stillness just how close he was to tears. The last dregs of adrenaline were leaving him shaking and shocky as they faded, with numb fingertips, stinging eyes, and a stubborn weakness in his legs. He hated confronting people directly. He hated standing out. That wasn’t supposed to be what his life was. That was supposed to be something that being in a group would let him avoid, and yet, and _yet_—

“Well, that was exciting,” Molly said from behind him, making Caleb flinch. He still sounded woozy and unbothered. He sounded as if he were simply commenting on the weather rather than his near miss. “I’ve never been fought over before.”

Caleb didn’t quite know what to say to that, didn’t pick up on the meaning there even if he could tell there _was_ meaning there. He simply gave an acknowledging hum at first, and only after fumbling his silver thread from his pouch was he able to muster a reply. “May it be the last.”

He started to wind the silver thread around the room. Then he stopped, retrieved a chair, and shunted Molly into it so he could start over without the tiefling in his way. The _weakness_ he could feel beneath his hands was starting to scare him. Enchantment magic didn’t usually have such visibly physical effects, did it? “S-Stay here. I, I need to make certain we are safe. Just sit.”

Molly nodded easily, did not protest, and Caleb turned back to his work with his mind racing.

Poison, perhaps? A mild poison to cause weakness and clumsiness for a while, probably mixed with a potion to charm and enchant the victim. That way, the man wouldn’t have had to worry about concentration, and if Molly had managed to shake off the enchantment halfway through, he still would have been helpless to resist whatever his attacker might have wanted to do to him.

It was unfortunately plausible. Caleb knew that magically endowed potions played very nicely with poisons. He could only _hope _that his guess was right, and that Molly hadn’t instead been dosed with something more lethal. Of course, the Crownsguard would never listen to a vagabond tiefling reporting being violated by a well-to-do human resident, but perhaps the man had intended to dump a body in a ditch rather than leave a living victim behind to even attempt to cause problems.

The thought made him shudder, swallowing down a fresh surge of dread. He had no way of knowing one way or another. All he could do was keep them both safe and alive until this wore off or until Nott returned. She’d be able to tell him more.

“I suppose it’s only that—” Molly continued on, as Caleb started working his way along the last wall. On the very edge of his hearing, he heard a sound like…rustling? It made him frown curiously. “--I didn’t think _you_ would be the one fighting over me. But I don’t mind it. Honestly, Caleb, if you wanted to fuck me, you only had to ask.”

A choked, strangled noise escaped Caleb, and he nearly dropped the thread. He held on to his concentration and his component by the tips of his fingers, cursing himself. Every minute that passed without this room being defended felt like it was killing him by inches. He _would not_ stop again.

“I do not want to fuck you, Molly,” he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the wall as he resolutely continued to spin the thread along. “I am not going to touch you.”

Molly laughed – it sounded bright as spun glass and just as brittle. “Of course you do and of course you are, Cay-leb.” There was a childishly singsong note in how he said Caleb’s name that only made what he was saying even worse. “_Lots_ of people want to fuck me, I’ll have you know. I am _very_ handsome.”

Once again, Caleb heard what he could not deny now was the sound of rustling fabric, and the sound made him cringe forward against the wall. But there was nowhere to go, nowhere to escape to that wouldn’t leave Molly alone and vulnerable all over again. And Molly kept talking – whatever he’d started letting out, he seemed genuinely unable to stop, and the cheer in his voice had the air of a well-worn lie that was doing less and less with every word to hide the pain that lay beneath.

“I am very handsome, I am incredibly striking, in fact. I’ve even been called ‘bewitching’, I think. Once. That was nice. I am one-of-a-kind! That’s what matters. Not another tiefling in all of Wildemount like me. And that’s fine. That’s good! That’s what I want. I just want to be me, as much and as hard as I can. And sometimes people like that. Sometimes they don’t, and fuck ‘em.”

The air around him felt suddenly, oppressively heavy. His limbs felt numb and divorced from his control. It felt exactly like he was in a nightmare in fact and, like his nightmares of burning or falling or failing, Caleb could see exactly where this was going to end and yet he could do absolutely nothing to stop it.

Moving like a puppet on strings, Caleb tied off the thread into its proper loop then slowly, slowly turned to face Molly. The tiefling was sitting on the floor, his coat discarded to one side and his shirt discarded to the other. Caleb could see the bundle of flowers at his shoulder and the peacock’s tail curling down his neck, the emerald trail of the serpent curling down his arm and the various stars and constellations wound throughout the other designs wherever there was room. He could see the neat, thin, silvery scars that covered Molly’s chest and shoulders, left there by the tiefling’s own hand.

He could also see, now, that Molly was trembling finely and starting to sweat, that his eyes were staring back into some past private hell that he could not admit had been a hell because of what such an admission would _mean_.

Caleb understood. He understood so well that it hurt.

Molly was still talking, and all Caleb could do was listen and wish that things were different. “And sometimes, people like the look of me enough to want me all to themselves for a while. That’s fine. And sometimes they want me bad enough to say things like ‘be quiet and I’ll let your circus stay in town another day’ or ‘be good and I won’t tell anyone about the three silver’. And that’s fine. They get something out of it, and so do I. That’s fine. That’s fair.”

He shouldn’t be hearing this. He didn’t want to hear any of this. _Molly_ wouldn’t want him to hear any of this. But here he was, here they were, and there was nothing either of them could do to fix anything.

All Caleb could do was _understand_, and he did understand all too well.

“He put something in my drink, didn’t he?” Molly mumbled. He was starting to sway, now, even while sitting down. “I had a minute where I. Um. Where I wondered.”

Caleb nodded, though he had no idea if Molly saw it. Indeed, when the tiefling raised his head to try and look at Caleb, it seemed like he was only staring towards his best guess of where Caleb even was.

“That’s new. Never had to watch my drink before, y’know? But that’s not so bad, isn’t it? It’s nice that he thought I was worth the effort of something like that. Nice to not get threatened, or dragged, or—"

His composure snapped. His helplessness became too much to keep swallowing down. And so Caleb was finally able to shake the leaden numbness from his limbs enough to stand, enough to move, enough to kneel down in front of Molly. He reached out with shaking hands and guided his companion to slump forward, to let his head rest on Caleb’s shoulder and maybe, finally _stop_.

Molly didn’t seem to understand, at first – Caleb heard him make a soft, confused noise, and he stayed otherwise rigid under Caleb’s hands. But doing anything more felt as if it would have been crossing a line and, thankfully, after another minute or so his patience was rewarded and he felt Molly relax at last. It was Caleb’s turn to tense as he felt Molly’s arms wrap around him loosely, but it didn’t seem to be a prelude to any more awful _misunderstandings_ and so he resolved to live with it. 

“You are going to lay down,” Caleb said, and he barely recognized the sound of his own voice from how thick with emotion it was. “You are going to rest. In a while, you are probably going to be very sick. But you will get through it, and I will keep watch, and no one else is going to touch you beyond that.”

Molly didn’t answer right away. He wasn’t entirely dead weight as Caleb struggled to get them both back to their feet, so Caleb was at least relatively certain that he was still conscious. But he remained quiet and pliant as Caleb helped him collapsed onto the bed, only shifting a little and apparently on instinct to help accommodate for his horns. But for a time, he simply laid there, his eyes half-open and staring blankly at the wall, his breathing shallow.

Caleb, meanwhile, took up an anxious perch on the windowsill. His and Nott’s room faced the front of the building, and so he was afforded a look at the street outside through the fading light. At least this way, he could have some advance notice on the return of his friends or the arrival of Crownsguard.

When Molly spoke again, his voice was little more than a rasping whisper, as if two words alone sapped nearly all his strength.

“Thank you.”

It barely caught the edge of Caleb’s hearing, soft enough that he might have been able to convince himself he’d hallucinated it. But he looked anyway, and saw Molly looking back at him, having clawed back a moment of focus no doubt by the tips of his fingers.

Caleb reached out slowly and patted Molly gently on the head, right between his horns. “Try and sleep,” he whispered.

Molly nodded slowly, then let his eyes fall closed and did just that. Caleb was left to keep an uneasy vigil for the next two hours and thirty-three minutes, staring out the window, running his fingers anxiously through Frumpkin’s fur.

When the knock came at the door, Caleb startled so badly he nearly slipped off the windowsill, and his frightened yelp echoed throughout the quiet room. But Molly didn’t wake, barely twitched, and in the end Caleb forced himself to go to the door and meet Wessek. The dragonborn passed over a tray with a pitcher of water and a glass. Caleb accepted it with a mumble of thanks, locked the door behind the barkeeper, then set it on the end table for whenever Molly was next able to wake up.

In the tense, quiet stillness, he heard it immediately when Molly started to cough and retch a while later. Feeling strangely distant and detached by then, Caleb went to him and rolled him carefully onto his side so that, when he did vomit, it wound up on the floor next to the bed rather than back down his throat. Molly only seemed to come fully conscious halfway through emptying his stomach. Even then, Caleb quickly realized that lucidity had left him entirely.

“Gustav?” the tiefling whispered in a wet, thick, _small_ voice. His eyes were screwed tightly shut and he was shaking like a leaf, sweat plastering his bangs to his forehead and staining around the hems of his shirt. “Wh-Where are we? Wha’s happened? Is everyone okay?”

Caleb didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what he could say which wouldn’t feel like another violation later. He just rubbed Molly’s back as he was sick again, murmuring soothing nonsense for his own sake as much as anything else. The next time Molly collapsed limply back onto the mattress, Caleb kept his hands occupied removing some of his chains and charms, the ones most likely to get stained if this sickness kept up or tangled as Molly thrashed around in bed. Thankfully, Molly didn’t seem to notice – Caleb already knew that his horns had next to no feeling in them, and he was too far gone to hear the faint jingling chimes as the chains came free. Caleb polished a few on a relatively clean patch of his coat, arranged them neatly on the windowsill, and by the time he was done he felt safe to try and see if Molly could keep some water down. 

Molly was eager to drink, and too weak to fight when Caleb forced him to drink slowly. Even a few swallows of water were enough to help his voice sound less ruined when he spoke again. It was what he said next which made a hot, sick chill race up Caleb’s spine. “Please stop, _please,_ I know what I said but this _hurts_, I don’t want this…”

Caleb said nothing, kept his mouth pressed into a thin, tight line as though to keep the bile at bay. He just brought Molly another full cup, then a third after that. He’d traveled with Nott long enough to know that dehydration could be the real killer during a sickness like this. If this was as bad as it got, then as long as he could keep Molly hydrated, then he could get Molly through this. He could do that much, at least.

He couldn’t think of anything to do for the hallucinations besides directing Frumpkin to curl up against Molly’s back and purr as loud as he could. As Caleb settled himself back on the windowsill, he let himself believe that it seemed to help calm the tiefling just a little.

At the least, he sounded _frighteningly_ lucid when he spoke again, so much so that Caleb nearly startled out of his skin again and had to look twice to make sure that Molly’s eyes were still closed.

“Don’t worry,” Molly said, and his accent was never especially pronounced but now it was gone entirely. His voice was little more than a whisper but it was steady and strong nonetheless. “This won’t stop me. We’re still on schedule for the ritual. This won’t stop me.”

He fell silent after that, and stayed silent. Caleb, for his part, simply stared at Molly for a long, long while, tracking the rise and fall of his chest, thinking about a great many things. He thought about Cree, and scars that did not fade, about blood magic and rising from the grave. He thought about all the pieces which he truly, sincerely hoped would not turn out to fit together, for Molly’s sake and the sake of all the Mighty Nein besides.

In the end, there was nothing he could do about any of it, besides tug the blankets up over Molly’s legs a little and try to get comfortable by the window.

Even as the sun set fully and the light outside faded until it was lit by nothing more than torches and starlight, he saw the familiar figures approaching the inn. He made out Fjord, Yasha, and Nott – Beau and Jester must have still been off having their own fun for the night. That was fine. They were the two he always dreaded lying to the most.

So when the next knock came at the door, it came as no surprise. When someone tried the door and found it locked, that was no cause for surprise either. _“Molly?”_ Caleb heard Fjord call, as he stood and crossed the room to the door. _“You all right in there?”_

Caleb unlatched the door and opened it to reveal all three standing outside – Fjord, Nott, and Yasha, all looking worried. Fjord’s hand was still half-raised to knock on the door again.

“Caleb?” Fjord asked blankly.

“Wessek said that Mollymauk is sick?” Yasha added, staring past him to the huddled form of her friend on the bed.

Caleb nodded. He’d had a long while in between water refills to practice this lie. “_Ja_. Wessek found me while I was in the middle of copying. He told me that Mollymauk did not look well. Molly thinks something happened or was done to his drink. He was able to tell me that much before he passed out. I don’t know anything more, I’m sorry.” He inclined his head to Nott, who was standing on her tiptoes to try and get a proper look at Molly in turn. “I tried to keep him alive long enough to see if you could learn something, Nott.”

“I’d need a blood sample,” Nott mused. “To be _really_ sure. That probably wouldn’t bother _him_, would it?”

Fjord pointedly cleared his throat. “Yasha? What do you think about that?”

Yasha kept staring fixedly at Molly, so that at first Caleb wasn’t sure if she was listening at all. He had just enough time to wonder if she knew. Something about the look in his eyes made him curious about whether Molly would have told her even this much.

But when Fjord started to address her again, she simply nodded and waved a hand dismissively. “That’s fine,” she said, and crossed the floor without a backward glance to sit on the bed beside Molly. “Just be careful.”

The _or else_ went unspoken but heavily implied. Caleb saw Nott gulp as she started to take stock of the various flasks and tools on her belt. Her alchemy kit was in the corner, on her side of the room where it had sat for days on end now, awaiting her attentions.

Fjord watched Nott approach Molly with a scalpel in hand, saw Yasha gather Molly up into her arms, and sighed. “Smells like a few different things died in here,” he said. “But, I’ve swabbed worse messes before. I’m gonna go downstairs, see if Wessek’s got any rags to spare.”

“Should I—” Caleb began, but Fjord shook his head.

“Take it easy, Caleb. You’ve done plenty. And thank you for that. I—” His frown grew more pronounced. His fingers tapped an anxious tattoo against his thigh. “I hate to think that something might have happened to him while we weren’t here. But you were. So thank you, Caleb. I was just getting used to having a roommate, I’d hate to have to change that up now.”

“Yes, thank you,” Yasha said. Caleb looked over to see that she’d gotten Molly settled, leaning against her chest with his head on her shoulder, still absolutely boneless but also still calm. Maybe it was just because he was still too weak to fight. Maybe it was because, even now, he somehow knew Yasha’s presence. “Thank you for taking care of him, Caleb. I won’t forget this.” She actually smiled, an expression as soft as flower petals. “Why don’t you rest in our room until we finish cleaning up? Jester and Beau won’t be back tonight.”

They were praising him, thanking him. And even if Caleb rationally knew that he’d done a good thing, that he’d spared a teammate – a _friend_ – from harm, all he felt was tired and sick. It shouldn’t have come to this in the first place. He kept thinking about what had almost happened, what would have happened if he’d been just a little bit more of a coward.

“It’s nothing,” he said out loud, fidgeting with his scarf, staring at his feet.

“It’s not,” Yasha insisted. “I just…he…” Here she faltered, the cracks showing in her expression, betraying the depths of the worry beneath. Caleb saw her worry at her lower lip, before she kissed the top of Molly’s head very gently. “You know now that he never really had anyone else besides the circus. After that broke up…I was worried about him. But now I know that you’ll help him even when there aren’t monsters to kill. And that means a lot to me, Caleb. _Thank you_.”

The words washed over him like a tide. He knew they were sincere, fervently so. Yet all he could do was wonder and worry what Molly would think when he returned to his senses and realized everything that had happened, everything he’d _said_ in his delirium. Maybe they would sink in later. For now, the light and gratitude Yasha’s eyes, and Fjord’s as well, was making him want to run and hide.

_Your secret is safe with me_, Caleb promised silently. _Your secret _dies_ with me_. It was the least he could do. It would be far from the worst secret he was still keeping from this group.

“Just, just tell me if he needs anything more,” was all Caleb said aloud, and then he turned sharply on his heel and left the room before anyone could continue misunderstanding him. He escaped from a room that smelled of sweat and sickness into a room that smelled only of cinnamon and laundry soap. After a much longer war with himself than he would ever admit, he tugged the topsheet off Jester’s bed, wrapped himself up in the _softness_, and laid himself down on the floor with Beau’s pillow to rest his head on.

He knew he must have slept, and the rest of the group let him sleep there until morning. When he woke, Nott was curled up by his feet, and a whiff of incense and sandalwood still lingered on the air.


End file.
